About RH Brown

The former veteran radio announcer and veteran Vietnam Era Army Medic is also an author. His autobiographical book, Call Me Gullah: An American Heritage is available via amazon.com in paperback and kindle.

Since the military selected the site back in June 1941, billions of dollars have been pumped into the local ecomony.

When it comes to financial impact, records released during a base luncheon Friday, indicate that in fiscal year 2012, 343 point two million dollars came our way thanks to the base.

That’s an increase of some 81 point three million from the previous year.

“The increase is due to two major construction projects we are able to fund in fiscal year 12 that will go on. The runway this year and the medical clinic will go on through 2015,” said Colonel James Sears, CAFB Commander.

Its obvious to business owners in the Friendly City, base personnel and workers associated with private companies at the base, contribute to a healthy bottom line.

“Absolutely yes. Particularly Friday and Saturday nights we see a lot of young pilots, student pilots trainees. Lot of times they come in in groups. We do a little bit on the patio which is nice. They like to sit out on the patio,” said Dow Ford, The Grill At Jackson Square.

“We have a few more people here for the extra mission we do for the introduction of fighter fundamentals program and a few other things on the base, that allow us to do a little more for the community than some of the others,” said Sears.

Columbus Air Force Base’ fiscal year 2012 impact numbers appear to be better than bases like Laughlin and Vance.

And an 81.3 million dollar increase is phenomenal, but its *not* something we can expect every year.

“Yes we do definitely see the impact from the student pilots as well as the instructor pilots here at the grill,” said Ford.

Columbus Air Force Base is the busiest of all bases in the Air Force, in 2012 base pilots flew 267 sorties daily.